Android phones are notorious for hogging up the phone’s memory by storing an ungodly cache and other unused files locally. Over time this can slow down your phone by quite a lot and make using your phone quite a frustrating experience.
Optimising your phone is essential for a smooth user experience. In this article, we’re going over six ways to empty trash on Android.
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Clear out the cached data
The first thing you should consider when you’re clearing out the trash on your Android is deleting cache files on your phone.
- Open your phone settings and head over to Storage.
- Tap Other apps
- Select the app you want to delete the cached data.
- Tap the Clear cache button.
Repeat this process for all apps that are taking up too much space on your phone.
Delete downloaded files
Most of us download files on our phones and totally forget about them. Over time, these files can end up taking a lot of space in your phone’s memory and slow it down.
Open your file manager, head over to downloads and delete any files you’re not using frequently. This can help free up a surprising amount of space on your phone and help it run smoother.
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Uninstall unused apps
Hoarding apps on phones is a rather popular habit. The thing is, just like downloads, these unused apps sit there eating your device’s memory. Deleting unused apps can go a long way in decluttering your phone.
To delete an app, tap and hold it down in the app drawer. Once the icon becomes draggable, drag it to the top left on your screen and release it over the uninstall icon. Repeat this process for all other unnecessary apps on your phone, and you’ll be good to go.
Store your data on a MicroSD Card
This might seem like an obvious one, but strong data on a microSD card helps keep your phone’s internal memory decluttered and performance unimpacted. Most phones these days do come with a hybrid SIM/microSD Card slot, so you may have to sacrifice a SIM card in favour of a microSD card.
However, it does pay off, especially if you carry a lot of files locally on your phone. It’s a good idea to expand your phone’s storage regardless of you think you’ll use it or not.
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Clear out the trash in your apps
At times, several apps will store deleted files locally on the device for a particular amount of time if the user wants to reverse the deletion. Apps like Google Photos and Gmail keep deleted photos or emails stored locally if you’d want to recover them later.
While deleted emails may not take up a lot of space, many deleted photos definitely will. Here’s how you can delete them.
- Open Google Photos and tap on Library in the bottom right.
- Tap on Bin.
- Tap on the three vertical dots in the top right.
- Tap Empty Bin.
Try using a third-party file explorer
Most third-party file explorers have built-in storage managers to help you get rid of temporary or cache files with the tap of a button. We suggest using either Files by Google, Astro File Manager or Solid Explorer.
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